Thick Pigeon: Too Crazy Cowboys

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Factory 1984.  FACT 85

Discogs

This album is something of a forgotten chapter in the history of Factory.  It was the band’s only album, although there were also a handful of singles.  Label aside, this release has a few claims to fame: firstly Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris, half of New Order play on the album, composer Carter Burwell went on to score all the Coen Brothers films, while the singer, Stanton Miranda worked with Kim Gordon pre Sonic Youth and appeared in Silence Of The Lambs among other well known films.

On to the music.  Well, it’s 80s synthpop, but there’s rather more too it than that, as you’d expect from its provenance.  The New Order sound is obvious in places, and the genre is taken somewhere which is by turns avant garde and really quite dark.  It’s very much of its time, but I think the artistic merit of the album shines through anyway